SERIALIZATION OF “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle” – Chapter 32 of 61
Warble Threatens Tony, Orlando, and Don with the Enron Bylaws and the Postamble to the Constitution
Chapter 32
Warble Threatens Tony, Orlando, and Don with the Enron Bylaws and the Postamble to the Constitution
At their supposed 'secret hideout' (actually a mini storage unit they had just rented on the outskirts of Philadelphia), Warble unscrews the lid of the Coricidin bottle.
Understandably, the captured trio had panicked, hyperventilated, and used up practically all the oxygen in their plastic prison. The baseball players/golfing buddies (but not singing trio) had just passed out (the traces of Coricidin left in the bottle had not helped much) when Warble unscrews the lid.
Air flows into the translucent plastic chamber, and the trapped athletes regain consciousness, one right after another.
“What are we doing here?” Tony Perez wants to know.
“I thought all that was a nightmare,” Orlando Cepeda comments, looking around in wonder, first through the bottle at the 'giants' surrounding him, then at his fellow inmates, and finally back at his captors.
“Where are we?” Don Mattingly asks, rubbing his eyes.
“You are right here,” Warble answers cryptically. “You are here to get an attitude adjustment,” he goes on. “And although this may seem nightmarish to you, it is a dream come true for us,” as he indicates his accomplices arrayed around the imprisoned and dumbfounded trio.
Soundtrack note: The rendition of “Attitude Adjustment” made famous by Hank Williams, Jr.
“What are you going to do to us?” they ask in unison.
Warble cringes and covers his ears. The harmonics produced by the echo in the plastic bottle as the sound waves pass over the bottle's rim have irritated his overly sensitive ears immensely. “Dump them out in my hands,” he orders Jacques, stretching out his upper extremities and bringing them together. “I can't stand that infernal three-part inharmonious echolocation racket.”
Jacques obediently and unceremoniously dumps them into Warble's cupped hands. Tony, Orlando, and Don tumble over each other, half acrobatically, half clumsily.
“I figured out your plan, youse guys,” Warble tells them, using his best Jimmy Cagney gangster accent. “You intend to break the backbone of this country by popularizing the color yellow. That's mean, ya see!?!”
Quick study that he is, Don Mattingly has already realized it would be “vanity and a striving after the wind” to attempt to understand WarbleLogic(™) or to argue with the man. He just wants to know Warble's intentions so he can figure out a defense, plan a diversion, or locate an escape route. “So what are you going to do to us?” Don asks again.
“Like I already said, we're going to give you an attitude adjustment, so that you're no longer mean and nasty, but sugar and spice and everything nice.”
Soundtrack Note: What else? “Sugar and Spice” by The Searchers
“How do you intend to do that?” Mattingly snarls.
“Marianne, bring up The Documents,” Warble commands.
“Which documents, Warble?” Marianne inquires.
“The Documents,” Warble snaps. “You know, the documents to prick a person's conscience, awaken in them zeal for righteousness, and stir them on to positive and constructive activity: the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, and the Enron Corporation bylaws.”
“The entire Constitution?” Marianne asks. “Including the preamble?”
“Including the preamble,” Warble affirms, nodding. “And,” he pauses for anticipatory emphasis, “all the amendments...and the postamble, too.”
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Blackbird Crow Raven’s “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle” is being serialized in this space each Sunday and Thursday; it is also available in its entirety from here.
You can listen to the recording of this excerpt, by the author’s alter ego, here: